mmslouisuac12

The Lamentable Decline of the Andean Condor.

"Les condors nuisent beaucoup aux troupeaux, en tuant des animaux nouveau-nés.  C’est pourquoi les habitants actuels leur font une guerre d’extermination et mettent en jeu pour les détruire beaucoup de ruses différentes."  (Władysław Taczanowski, 1883.)

The status of the Andean Condor Vultur gryphus has become a matter of concern, not just to myself but to the world's interest in conservation.  It matters not only to the human aspect but to other forms of wildlife as well.  In beginning The Unknown Andean Condor as a project and as a website blog, I have sought to elucidate the matter of making it known to better understand its plight and that that course may be reversed.  Unfortunately, the further decline of this species is being witnessed, with the more recent change in 2020 of its status to being Vulnerable and a rapid, overall loss of more than eighty percent of its total population.

In writing this post I wish to take a moment and draw attention to the established research articles which have been published and which highlight the causes for its status.  Even though my posts are not written as research articles, I want to integrate references to these recent, more technical publications into the discussion on the proposed extra-limital movements of the Andean, which are also often drawn from stories relating to cryptozoology and other disciplines.  I will explain the correlation between sightings of them in North America and why that is important to their conservation.  This post will also will serve to speak to consideration of the similar plights of many other vulture species, which are also in decline worldwide, with a comparative examination of their former successful numbers over the past as recorded in history.

At the beginning of this century, the Andean Condor was not considered to be a threatened species.  That changed by May 1, 2004, when Birdlife International, under the advisors Alison J. Stattersfield, P. Benstead, and Stuart H. M. Butchart, recommended to the I.U.C.N. (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) to have it designated as a Near Threatened species and genus.  At the time, its population was estimated to be about 60,000 individuals; however, the condor was in decline.  I remember reading the I.C.B.P. (International Council for Bird Preservation) text Threatened Birds, which was revised in 1988 and is in my library.  The only reference to condors, then, was to the efforts to save the California Condor Gymnogyps californianus and, in reference to the Andean, how the latter was considered (and later, tried) as a surrogate for population management in the United States of the Californian (p. 22).

This link details the most recent assessment of the status of the Andean Condor.  The population is now about ten thousand, with just 6,700 of these being mature individuals.

https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22697641/181325230

I will assess the history of the condor in relation to how its population was characterized.  It is granted that earlier works told of a bird that was far more numerous than the Vulnerable species that it is today.  I will quote some of these and also present an English translation of Taczanowski's entry for the Andean Condor in his Ornithologie du Pérou (below).

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KOFOID

"They are most commonly seen standing on rocks, around vertical cliffs, where their nests are."  

Charles A. Kofoid, quoting a translation of Adolphe Boucard, who was writing in 1851.

The Condor (1923). 25:29

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WHYMPER

"On the next day we turned our attention to Condors.  In Aspects of Nature, vol. 2, p. 4, Humboldt says this bird often soared over his head "above all the summits of the Andes"; and at p. 41 of the same volume he observes, "It is a remarkable physiological phenomenon, that the same bird, which can fly in circles for hours in regions of the atmosphere so rarefied, should sometime suddenly descend, as on the western declivity of the Volcano of Pichincha, to the sea-shore, thus passing rapidly through all gradations of climate."  Mr. James Orton, late Professor of Natural History in Vassar College, improves upon this, and states that the Condor "can dart in an instant from the dome of Chimborazo to the sultry coast of the Pacific."  The shores of that Ocean are no less than one hundred and twenty miles from the mountain; and if my schoolboy readers will multiply sixty by sixty, and then by one hundred and twenty, they will find the rate (in miles) per hour, at which the Condor can fly, according to Professor Orton.  They will probably wonder at the keenness of eyesight which enabled him to trace this lightning rapidity; and will be disposed to enquire how he was advised of the arrival on the shores of that sultry coast of the particular Condor which started from the frigid dome.  As these flights of the imagination may lead some to suppose that the Condor has a very great range in altitude on the Equator; that it habitually soars at extraordinary elevations; and that it flies with immense rapidity, I venture to give some of our own observations.

"When we were upon Chimborazo, I was, at first, a little apprehensive that we might attract the attention of these formidable birds.  They were numerous round about the mountain.  When the atmosphere permitted us to look below, we commonly saw a dozen on the wing at the same time.  They were seen daily, and it was their ordinary and everyday habit to sail to and fro at a moderate elevation above the ground they were watching, where there were cattle and sheep.  On no single occasion did we see a Condor rise so high as the Second Camp (16,660 feet), nor, I think, approach within a thousand feet of its level.  

"Condors were very numerous upon the lower slopes of Antisana.  A score or more continually hovered over the pastures, keeping ordinarily about 1500 feet from the ground----an elevation which they have no doubt learned by experience is sufficient for practical purposes.  They did not 'dart' upwards or downwards, but rose rather slowly; and, when they had attained their usual height, maintained themselves at it by nearly imperceptible movements of the wings, and floated, balancing themselves in the air, turning to this or that side, gradually descending, and then, by a few leisurely strokes, regained their former level; continuing to float and circle in this manner by the hour together.  

"We did not either when upon or in the neighborhood of the summits of Chimborazo and Antisana, or near the summits of any other mountain, see a Condor in our vicinity upon a single occasion, and I think never observed one so high as 16,000 feet.  I believe Humboldt to have been mistaken in supposing that he often saw the bird soaring above all the summits of the Andes.  Any one, however skilled in judging distances, may be deceived in such a matter.  In the accompanying diagram, let H stand for Hacienda; S for the summit of Antisana; the line WR indicate the level of our camp; and A, B, a pair of Condors, hovering over the lower slopes.  An observer at H might naturally suppose the birds to be higher than the summit, though to another at W it would be apparent that they were below his level.  While there may, possibly, be occasions when the Equatorial Condor departs from its usual routine, I think such instances must be rare; and that the upper limit of its habitual range cannot be higher than 16,000 feet.

"Though some of these birds were in captivity at Quito, we saw none at liberty so low as 9000 feet, and were unable to learn that they ever visited the sea.  Mr. J. S. Wilson, who had lived for twenty-five years in Ecuador, and passed the greater part of that time upon the coast, told me that he had never known one to come down to the plains, or heard of such an occurrence.  I imagine, therefore, that the Equatorial Condor very seldom descends to the Pacific.  It seems, indeed, probable that it never does so.  It is said that those which are despatched (in confinement) from the interior to the coast invariably die before reaching Guayaquil.  Yet it is an undoubted fact that Condors frequent the sea-shore in more southern parts of South America.  Whether the same individual birds also soar to great heights, and are specifically the same as the Condor of the Equator, are questions that I am unable to answer.  If there are no marked points of difference between them, it will be ascertained that this species has a range in altitude of about 16,000 feet (not in any one country, but spread over thirty degrees of latitude) and this is perhaps the greatest that is possessed by any bird.

"On the few occasions upon which we were approached by Condors in a menacing manner, we became aware of their presence from their shadows being cast upon us by a nearly vertical sun.  They never came near when the sun was concealed, and if they hovered in our neighborhood they always kept the sun at their backs.  This cannot be their invariable habit in a country where the sun is so often invisible, though possibly it is adopted whenever there is a chance, and the motive is obvious.  The objects to be attacked are dazzled by the sun's rays, while the assailants are able to examine their brilliantly-lighted, intended victims at their ease, whose eyes are picked out at the earliest opportunity, and are thus rendered completely defenceless.  The herdsmen on Antisana had lifelong familiarity with the Condor, and did not stand in awe of it.  They told me that the bird was particularly addicted to old horse and young calf, and might, after feeding, be easily caught with the lasso.  Señor Rebolledo said that it would be a mercy to slaughter some of his worn-out steeds, and one was killed and laid out in order that his people might display their dexterity.  

"We all descended to Antisanilla on the afternoon of March 11, and the baggage went on the next morning to Piñantura; while I was taken to a neighbouring valley to see how wild cattle were captured, and after witnessing some clever horsemanship was led a mile or two towards the south.  The slaughtered horse had been laid out on high ground, in a hollow surrounded by little knolls; and watchers, posted in concealment, counted the company as it assembled.  A scout stopped us while still a mile away, saying that the feast had scarcely commenced, although eighteen Condors had arrived, and he kept us lying for several hours hidden in the grass, while this great, solemn assembly sat watching the dead horse.  Our time being exhausted, we stalked up to within two hundred yards, and then mounted, without uttering a word, expecting every moment that we should be perceived.  But the birds sat still as mutes, out of sight in the hollow; and we crept nearer, with the herdsmen leading, and with the signal being given they dashed in and threw their lassos, and all the eighteen Condors flew away,----scared and hurriedly, yet without the lightning rapidity that is attributed to them by Professor Orton."

Chapter 10, "The First Ascent of Antisana;" pp. 200--205, from Edward Whymper, Travels Amongst the Great Andes of the Equator (1892).

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REDFIELD

"The Condor is found in the Andes from one end of South America to the other; but is most numerous in Peru and Chili, and is frequently met with at an elevation of from 10,000 to 15,000 feet above the level of the sea.  Here, amidst perpetual snow, Condors may be seen in groups of three or four, but never in larger companies, like the true Vultures.  The Condor descends to the plains only when driven by the demands of appetite; but soon leaves them again for a lighter atmosphere."

Zoölogical Science; or Nature in Living Forms, Illustrated by Numerous Plates.  A(nna) M(aria) Redfield (1858), p. 291. 

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DARWIN

"The condor lays a couple of eggs and the ostrich a score, and yet in the same country the condor may be the more numerous of the two:.."

On the Origin of Species... Charles Darwin, 1859.  Chapter III, "Struggle for Existence."

By "ostrich" Darwin is referring to the Greater Rhea Rhea americana, which is now actually more prevalent than the Andean Condor in South America as its status is that of a Near Threatened species.

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TACZANOWSKI

"The young, when emerging from the egg, are covered with curled, lengthy down, and M. de Humboldt rightly compares it to that of young owls.  This down, which also covers the young of all species of Sarcorhamphus and Cathartes, lasts for a few months.  It is grayish-white in the condor and is soon replaced by blackish-brown feathers which it wears for two years.  In the second year, at the time of moulting, which precedes the period of courtship, the feathers become slightly blacker, without showing the white patch of the flight feathers.  The white ruff begins to appear at this time and not, as according to M. de Humboldt, only in the third year.  It is true that it is then narrow.  The male does not have a fleshy crest and does not begin to take it on until its third year, when the ruff becomes bushy and beautiful as it is throughout the rest of the animal's life.  It is also at this time that the feathers, which are usually of a uniform color, begin to whiten on the remiges.  We say beginning, because according to the locals, the condors show more white the older they become.  It is this white part which made Garcilaso de la Vega claim that they were black and white, in sections, like magpies.

"The ones we measured in the country did not have a three meter wingspan.  We measured them in the Andes and on the coast of Patagonia, and all more or less approached this size.  Their ordinary length is 1.25 to 1.30 meters.  Among those that we measured on the Andes and in the southern regions, we observed no notable differences in size, although MM. Temminck and Humboldt say, according to travelers, that those of Chile must be larger.  The female condor is slightly larger than the male, which is true for almost all birds of prey, but we thought that we noticed that this difference is less observable in this species than in all the others.

"The condor, like all vultures, exudes a strong odor of rotting flesh which must undoubtedly be attributed to its type of food.  None of the authors who have discussed this famous bird have pointed out this particularity, which we believe necessary to mention because all of these species do not to the same degree exhale this nauseating odor.

"The condor especially inhabits either arid or sparsely wooded montane regions, or sea coasts where steep cliffs replace the mountains.  However, one should not believe that it is found on all mountains or all elevated areas which are devoid of verdure.  It must be attracted to peaceful herds belonging to man, such as those of sheep, llamas, or alpacas, or by many wild animals gathered in troupes.  Hence the large number of condors which usually follow the coasts where many sea-lions usually gather, like those of Peru and even those of Patagonia, which are always covered with sea-lions and seals.  Where there are not any sea-lions there are no condors, or else we will observe them, as in Peru, hovering over the twists and turns of the Andes or traversing over them with a rapid flight in order to look for the small, isolated troupes, the only remnants of the general destruction of the vicuñas and guanacos, whose gradual disappearance leads to that of the condors,  which, for this reason, prefer to stay near inhabited places and on roads. 

"Unlike the Cathartes which are seen everywhere by the hundreds, the condor always isolates itself when it hunts and rarely meets with other birds except to take its share of a common pasture.  However, we will sometimes see two together resting in the same rock hollow.

"The condor is quite lazy.  After spending the night in a crevice in a rock or steep cliff, its head buried in its shoulder, which gives it a sly air, it wakes at dawn, shaking its head two or three times, often waiting for sunrise to leave its place of rest, especially if it is not rushed by hunger; it leans over the edge of the rock, waving its vast wings as if swinging them away, and finally deploys them and rushes into the air.  It takes flight with difficulty and does not fly horizontally like many other birds.  At first one would believe it to be unsure of its aerial movements, because it begins by describing an arc of a circle, yielding to its own weight, but immediately regaining its majestic momentum, its wings rounded, its flight feathers spread apart from each other, it plays in the air with ease and without appearing to experience the slightest fatigue.  By its insensitive oscillatory movements it imposes itself in its flight in all imaginable directions; it gracefully follows all the windings of the terrain it travels; it always rises and falls quickly; now lowered level with the ground; suddenly lost in the clouds; but if from the air some prey comes to strike its keen sight, it then rushes or rather lets itself fall on it, as fast as an arrow, in a manner which the early authors carefully point out.  When it descends, says Garcilaso de la Vega, it makes such a great noise that it is astonishing, indeed a very true circumstance, for we ourselves have more than once experienced the wonder of which this author speaks; but in this condition we could not see, without risking being contradicted by travelers as several writers have done, one of the general characteristics of the flight of the condor. In any other case, the flight of the condor is not very loud. 

"The condor travels alone successively along the coasts, in order to look for animals of all kinds that are washed up by the sea, or the surroundings of inhabited places and the detours of the roads to collect the remains of animals discarded by man, and when it finds nothing, it lands on a peak or on a point of rock near the flocks, waiting there for a sheep or a llama to move away from the flock to give birth to its young.  So, if the shepherds are not able to defend the young, the condor takes flight, and circling at a great height above the poor creature, waits until it has given birth, then swoops down upon it, not to attack the female itself, but to attack the placenta and then kill its offspring by tearing it apart by the umbilical cord; finally, if the shepherd does not run quickly enough for it to release its prey, the avaricious bird in an instant, despite the efforts of the poor mother, has devoured the entrails of the little one.

"We have noticed that if there already is an animal being attacked by a condor, in a place where no others can be seen, several appear immediately without us being able to imagine where they come from.  We witnessed one of these bloody scenes on a trip from Arica to Tacna, on the coast of Peru.  It is a journey of eleven leagues, without water, in the middle of a desert of burning sand which the rain never refreshes and whose salty dust makes the drought even more felt.  Troupes of heavily laden mules and donkeys constantly travel across the country; the donkeys, who, there, more than anywhere else, are the tormentors of the inhabitants, cross it back and forth without being spared in the least, most often without being given anything to eat; so a large number of them die, whose dried-up corpses can be seen scattered on the road.  When in one of these caravans a donkey falls from fatigue it is abandoned, except if it is able to return to its ordinary home if it does not die of thirst first. 

"One of these animals, thus abandoned and unable to bear it any longer, laid down on the road ready to breathe its last.  The black vultures immediately approached it and gave it a few pecks, which were not very formidable for the dying beast; but soon a condor which had seen this struggle from the air swooped down on this animal, which was immediately abandoned by the vultures, which remained a few paces behind, no doubt impatiently awaiting the end of the condor's meal, which they did not dare approach.  The first condor was soon followed by two, and soon by seven to eight others who attacked their victim as fiercely as they wanted, tearing it with their beaks, some its eyes, others its generative organs, thus promptly delivering it from a remnant of life that so much pain must have made it quite unbearable.

"We approached the donkey, and then the condors retreated a certain distance, to the small hills nearby, or hovering above us, then as soon as we pretended to retreat, they returned to the charge.  Once satisfied, they took off, but not without great difficulty, only being able to take flight after having run for a long time while flapping their wings.  When they are chased, they try to make themselves lighter by disgorging part of what they have eaten.  If they are not harassed, they fly away and settle in the crevices of some rock, their usual residence, and there, as we saw above, quietly digest, with their heads buried between their two shoulders.  When a condor has not found prey, it hunts until nightfall, and it is only at the beginning of dusk that it returns to its lair.  It patiently endures hunger for several days, but amply compensates for its deprivations when it finds easy prey. 

"The condor has, it is true, long claws; but these claws are only used to support its body and are generally worn out, because it only rests on rocks, and as Mr. Temminck has judiciously remarked, cannot be used to seize any prey.  We add that they could not even help itself to eat.  It really only uses its terrible beak for this purpose, with which it tears and carves, pulling strongly on the seized portion.  We also do not believe that the condor can attack sheep, deer, llamas and, even less, heifers.  The American inhabitants, compatriots of the marvelous for all that concerns their country, are always inclined to exaggerate things.  We are certain that the condor never attacks an adult animal, even one the size of a sheep, unless this animal is breathing its last; but attracted by the bait of the umbilical cord, it always attacks animals born in the fields.  We can also certify that the condor never hunts birds, and we would not dare to assure one that it hunts even the weakest mammals. 

"This information exempts us from denying the fables written about the attack of children by condors, and we do not believe that a single example can be cited in this country.  There is more.  The Indians usually entrust their children from the tenderest age with guarding their herds, which they know very well to protect from condors, by taking the mothers next to them, or by carrying the newborns in their arms.  What is more, we frequently see children aged six to eight years chasing these enormous birds, who shyly flee when they approach, while half their size, could overthrow them with a sweep of their wings and kill them with a single blow of the beak. 

"It is no less pointless to refute the exaggerations that we find in Acosta and in Garcilaso de la Vega himself, usually so precise, relative to the strength of the condor's beak that they claim it is able to cut the skin of a bullock.  Nowhere have condors, at least those of today, appeared so vigorous to us; and there is no traveler on the coast of Peru or on the summit of the Cordilleras who has not seen the mules and donkeys, dead on the roads and of which the condors had eaten everything they could get, only being eaten at the belly, and around the anus and mouth, while the rest of the skin had dried on the flesh without being able to be dismembered by the condors. 

"Like the King Vulture and the Cathartes, the condor eats all kinds of animals.  We have seen it feed on mollusks, although this is its last resort to food.  It eats all dead animals, without exception, mammals, birds, reptiles and fish, and shows some predilection only for the flesh of mammals. When hunger presses it even eats excrement. 

"Condors are nothing less than unhabituated; they flee the approach of man from very far, except in Patagonia, where seeing men perhaps for the first time, they let us pass 150 or 200 meters below their dwelling.  We have never been able to approach a condor close enough to shoot it, without hiding in the vicinity of a prey presented to its avarice, in order to surprise it, thus differing greatly in this from the other vultures of America, the turkey vultures, especially, who live, so to speak, with the inhabitants. 

"It would be difficult to estimate exactly the actual lifespan of a condor, but if we are to believe the natives, its longevity would far surpass that of all other birds.  The Indians assured us that they still see from time to time some of them marked by their fathers, more than fifty years ago, with certain particular indications.  The reader feels with us that the fact itself and its proof would both need a verification that is more desirable than easy to obtain; but what is certain is that the condors multiply little, and that compared to those of Cathartes they are always small in number. 

"Condors do not make nests; they are content to select among the rocks, as we were able to recognize, while traveling the cliffs of Patagonia, concavities large enough to receive their eggs, always preferring to lay their eggs, the points being inaccessible less by elevation than by by the steepness of their slopes.

"The female condor lays two eggs, 10 to 12 centimeters long.  The natives told us they were white; but a fragment that we have seen of it would make us believe that as for the egg of the Turkey Vulture and the Black Vulture, the white is covered with reddish-brown spots spaced apart.   It is mainly from November to February that breeding takes place.  The pair then move further away from inhabited places to look for a suitable location.   The locals assured us that the female incubates alone, which seems difficult to believe, since in regions that are sometimes cold and treeless, the chick would have to eventually perish in the shell.  In any case, the male and female take care together of feeding the young condors, disgorging the food they ate themselves.  The young grow quite slowly and can barely fly after a month and a half.

"They still for a long period follow the pair who guided them in their first hunts, but the longest term of their learning never passes a few months, and from that moment we see the young condors isolate themselves from their parents and seek to provide for themselves to find their own nourishment.  More voracious than the old, but less foresighted and less defiant because they have less experience, they fall more easily in the traps of hunters; so young condors are often killed and adult condors are rarely killed. 

"Condors cause great harm to herds, killing newborn animals.  This is why the current inhabitants are waging a conflict of extermination against them and are using many different methods to eradicate them. 

"Most of the time they lie in wait for them, hidden near a place provided with bait likely to attract them, and then kill them with rifle shots; or, waiting until they are full, they pursue them on horseback, most often surrounding them with their terrible lasso; other times, finally, they surprise them, gorged with food, in a narrow circle of fences formed in advance around the tempting prey, and knock them out with sticks without which they cannot flee for lack of space, nor fly away due to the gluttony which weighs down their wings by overloading their stomachs.  We have not heard of the hunt described by Molina. According to this author, a man lies on his back, decked out in the skin of an ox, freshly skinned; the condor, deceived by the appearance of this skin which he takes for a dead animal, approaches it in order to eat. The man, whose hands are armed with gloves, then grabs the bird by the legs, and other hunters quickly come to dispatch it. 

"Like all birds of prey, in general, the condor has a very difficult life; but the inhabitants sometimes fall into an exaggeration in this regard similar to that of Ulloa who claims that the fabric of the condor's feathers is so tight that a bullet does not penetrate it, and who even adds that it was shot with eight at ten gunshots in a row without harming it, the bullets returned by the feathers going back towards the hunter." 

“This fact needs no refutation. We have killed condors from very far away, not only with ordinary bullets, but also with small bullets of hunters' No. 0 lead. Nevertheless the condor, being larger and stronger than any other bird of prey, must necessarily be more difficult to kill; so it flies for a long time before falling, even after being seriously injured. We have become certain that the condor is difficult to kill by any other means, such as strangulation.  Do we dare to admit that after having injured one with a bullet on the coast of Patagonia, we wanted to finish it off in this way and could only achieve this after an hour of the most painful efforts?  This observation is applicable even more directly to sea birds like albatrosses  (D'ORBIGNY)." 

"We meet the condor everywhere, on the coast, in the sierra and in the Cordilleras, but it seems to us that the high sierra is the area of which it has some predilection; the vast pastures of these regions are populated with numerous herds of cattle, and the inaccessible rocks present the bird with convenient and safe places for nesting. There is great damage to the newborn animals, and I know localities where it is impossible to keep livestock because of the condor and the bear. Generally it is known as buitri. 

"As much as it appears to be ugly up close, it is also majestic in flight, especially when it hovers at a great height without being able to distinguish the slightest movement of the wings, whose ends of the primary flight feathers are separated from each other and curved upwards. By leaning to the sides, it shows the white part of the wings, which lit by the sun produce a most graceful effect. It continually turns its head to the sides while moving its crest. Sometimes while hovering in this way, it makes a sort of humming sound, similar to that produced by the peacock when moving its wings. This noise must be very loud, because it can still be heard at a great distance  (STOLZMANN)." 

Władysław [Ladislas] Taczanowski, 1883; pp. 76--80.  Sarcorhamphus gryphus (p. 75) in Ornithologie du Pérou, t. 1.  Translated from the French by Mathew Louis.  Also includes references to Alcide Charles d'Orbigny and Jan Sztolcman [Stolzmann].

{My comments about Taczanowski's account is that it is a graphic depiction of the condor and in many respects is anthropomorphic.  It is important to note that, unlike the other nineteenth-century passages I have found relating to the condor's prevalence as a South American species, Taczanowski made clear that he regarded it as an infrequently sighted bird that was averse to the presence of humans.  I found two statements from this long passage worthy to quote in the original as the byline of this post and have provided them, above.}

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I will also highlight some recent technical publications which survey the conditions and circumstances of the Andean Condor's decline.  I will provide interpretative summaries of these based on the materials provided and the given abstracts.

STATUS CHANGE OF THE ANDEAN CONDOR

Under the review of E. Fernando, Birdlife International recommended to the I.U.C.N. to change its status from Near Threatened to Vulnerable, which was done on August 10, 2020.

WALLACE ET AL.  (+37 authors)

"Defining Spatial Conservation Priorities for the Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus)."  Journal of Raptor Research 56:1 (2022).

https://doi.org/10.3356/JRR-20-59 

A team of researchers evaluated the historical distribution of the Andean Condor in South America, resulting in an increase from the study in its overall recorded distributional area (1,247,133 square miles).  However, in many areas, as shown in Figure 1, therein, the condor is no longer known to occur according to expert knowledge and firsthand information.  This would include the coastal regions of Argentina.  The study includes the identification of twenty-one "Andean Condor Conservation Units" (English translation) and draws attention to the relatively small size of these Units in the northern hemisphere portions of its extant range, where threats to the population are greater.  Conservation of this species must be on a great scale to be effective, and efforts to do so must be integrated.  Due to their ability to "fly extremely long distances" condors engage in overlapping travel to different Units.  The birds from one population are "functionally connected" to that of another.  Four factors contribute to a propensity among the populations of them to experience widespread decline:  low abundance, later maturation of immatures, low reproductive rate, and wide-ranging behavior.

STATUS OF ANDEAN CONDORS IN SOUTH AMERICAN NATIONS 

Argentina  ENDANGERED

Bolivia  VULNERABLE

Chile  VULNERABLE

Colombia  CRITICALLY ENDANGERED

Ecuador  ENDANGERED

Peru  ENDANGERED

Venezuela  CRITICALLY ENDANGERED

Three hundred adults are estimated as the combined population of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela (the latter exclusively representing a reintroduced contagion).  The population in Bolivia is 1,388.  There are 2,000 individuals in Argentina and Chile.  Thus, most Andean Condors are found in Peru however Argentina is the country with the greatest distributional area for them.

The paper drew my attention to many other causes of decline in condors, most remarkably the Yawar Fiesta, a ritualized event held in Peru, as well as the sale of feathers and body parts of condor specimens.  Tourism is also a reason for their decline; I can see that the presence of humans near nesting adults will cause them to abandon their young.  Robert K. Wallace and his associates identified only fourteen percent of the Andean Condor's distributional area as being, in some minimal measure, protected land.  Since these giants fly across areas which are international boundaries between nations, collaboration between the governments of those South American countries is necessary to sustain the population and allow recovery.  Other goals from the report include a need to prohibit the use of poisons and lead in carcasses and a need for the monitoring and censusing of areas not fully understood in condor research. 

The cover of the March, 2022 number (above) where this Journal of Raptor Research report is found features a color painting of an adult male Andean Condor.

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WALLACE ET AL.  (+10 authors)

https://bolivia.wcs.org/en-us/Informative-resources/News-room/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/14884/A-New-Book-Dedicated-to-the-Andean-Condor-is-Published.aspx

https://bolivia.wcs.org/Portals/14/Libro%20Condor_ingles.pdf

Saving the Symbol of the Andes:  A Range Wide Conservation Priority Setting Exercise for the Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus).  Wildlife Conservation Society; La Paz, Bolivia  (2020).

The above links provide information about this book, which served as the basis of the research report I evaluated above.  A symposium of researchers met at the II International Andean Condor Symposium in Lima, Peru.  The 2015 event was sponsored by the World Conservation Society and the Peregrine Fund as well as two other Peruvian government departments.  International Vulture Awareness Day was given as September 5, 2020.

Most of the Andean Condor Conservation Units are found in Argentina, and these Units, overall, comprise thirty-seven percent of the species' geographical range.  It was likely a consequence of the symposium that the condor's status would eventually be upgraded.

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RESTREPO-CARDONA ET AL. (+6 authors)

Juan Sebastián Restrepo-Cardona et al.  "Anthropogenic threats to the Vulnerable Andean Condor in northern South America."  PLoS One 17(12): e0278331

doi:  10.1371/journal.pone.0278331  PMCID:  PMC9714725

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0278331

This paper was published on December 1, 2022 and is one of the more recent contributions to the study of the condor's decline.  The scope of it includes the threats which the condor faces in Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.  The combined population of them in these three countries is given as 340, which is fairly consistent with the figure I quote from the above Wallace et al. report.

In the study area, 83 percent of Andean Condors that were injured or perished due to human-induced factors were from Ecuador.  This was constructed from 164 birds and from a study span of 42 years.  The authors assigned 63 percent of these deaths to poisoning.  In a span of fourteen years (2007--2021), the various methods of killing contributed to an overall decrease in the Andean populations in Ecuador of twenty to thirty percent.  A detailed map includes a breakdown of where the condor has been affected and by what means, with a heavy concentration of such incidents occurring in Pichincha province, Ecuador.

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ZAMBRANO-MONSERRATE.

"The economic value of the Andean Condor:  The national symbol of South America."

Journal for Nature Conservation.  April, 2020.  Volume 154, 125796

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2020.125796 

This recent report was written by Manuel Zambrano-Monserrate.  The study evaluated the worth of the species in relation to human economic factors.  A "Willingness to Pay" indicator was assigned to this species, which, given in United States dollars, is an amount which serves to establish a value for a living species that is either emblematic or threatened (in the case of the Andean Condor, both).  The author assigned a range value of $18.65--$34.54 per annum for the Andean Condor, with a median amount of $24.83.  The figure for the Bald Eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus was also given, in part as a comparison ($31.85 per annum).  Willingness to Pay is a concept which I interpret to mean a respective amount that an individual person would be able to offer within a yearly period to fund the conservation measures designed for a given species like the condor and reverse its course towards extinction.  By measures I refer partly to the education of a general human populace towards the need to preserve species like this and their habitats.  This also applies to the expense and undertaking of further research throughout its distribution and the enaction of government policies to protect it.

The Andean Condor itself has become a priceless study in my own understanding of the natural world.  It is important to note that living Andean Condors are kept in many zoological parks around the world, and in the United States it is protected under the Endangered Species Act.   

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PLAZA & LAMBERTUCCI.

"Ecology and conservation of a rare species:  What do we know and what may we do to preserve Andean Condors?"

Pablo Plaza and Sergio Lambertucci.  2020.  Biological Conservation.  Volume 251; 108782.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108782

The Andean Condor is a species for which information about its behavior and ecology has increased considerably in recent decades.  Simultaneously, it is in a continuous decline despite measures towards its conservation.  The authors of this thirteen-page report explain proposed conservation actions based on what knowledge is known about the condor.  The most significant threats to these birds (and what I take to be the underlying reasons for its upgraded status as a Vulnerable species) are poisoning, whether directly intended or not, and lead contamination.  Plaza and Lambertucci draw attention to the overall declines in vulture species around the world.  Vultures are important to human health as they remove organic material, largely in the remains of carcasses, from the environment.

An updated review of the entire distribution of the condor is necessary and greatly needed to enact conservation strategies by such managers in the nations where it is a resident species.  I will here add that my argument in these posts of The Unknown Andean Condor that this is a species given to major dispersal, and that the areas where it may occur should likewise be considered as part of this approach; the importance of the posts I provide here is given and reinforced by them.  

The above study highlights the ecology of the condor as a bird which roosts communally, but does not necessarily nest in the same areas.  Table 1 (therein) outlines the conservation strategies for it; a major, important example would be a need to prohibit the use of aerial devices and the visitation of tourists to areas where they are nesting.  The need to seek ways to prevent the ingestion of veterinary medications in domestic livestock is also stressed.  In the nineteenth century Taczanowski wrote that these birds were a menace to livestock.  Plaza and Lambertucci in the present era write that the condors are unlikely to be given to attack living animals, including domestic or birthing livestock.  It is also important to note that this is a species with a skewed sex ratio, where males are more prevalent than females, and I see how their behaviors relate to their dispersal as well as their misorientation away from their breeding grounds.

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These are just some examples from the literature, old and new, which underscore the given argument in this post that this was once a creature which was certainly of Least Concern in its status to one which is close to becoming, like the California Condor, endangered or even critically endangered.

There are seven extant species of vultures in the Cathartidae and sixteen in the Accipitridae.  Most of them are now in decline and are threatened with imminent extinction.  (The critically endangered Madagascar Serpent Eagle Eutriorchis astur has also been included from certain sources as a genus and species related to the vultures.) 

VULTURES:  CRITICALLY ENDANGERED SPECIES

                CALIFORNIA CONDOR  Gymnogyps californianus

              RED-HEADED VULTURE  Sarcogyps calvus

             WHITE-HEADED VULTURE  Trigonoceps occipitalis

             HOODED VULTURE  Necrosyrtes monachus

             WHITE-RUMPED VULTURE  Gyps bengalensis

             WHITE-BACKED VULTURE  Gyps africanus

             INDIAN VULTURE  Gyps indicus

             SLENDER-BILLED VULTURE  Gyps tenuirostris

             RÜPPELL'S VULTURE  Gyps rueppellii

VULTURES:  ENDANGERED SPECIES

                EGYPTIAN VULTURE  Neophron percnopterus

             LAPPET-FACED VULTURE  Torgos tracheliotos

VULTURES:  VULNERABLE SPECIES

                ANDEAN CONDOR  Vultur gryphus

             CAPE VULTURE  Gyps coprotheres

VULTURES:  NEAR THREATENED SPECIES

                BEARDED VULTURE (LAMMERGEIER)  Gypaetus barbatus

             EUROPEAN BLACK VULTURE (CINEREOUS VULTURE)  Aegypius monachus

             HIMALAYAN VULTURE  Gyps himalayensis

Overall, I feel that my own contribution to the study of the Andean Condor should also be given consideration because I have and will continue to specifically highlight the (many) instances of where it has been encountered away from its breeding distribution in South America.  What I have read and know now motivates me to focus more on the upgraded status of them, and I see a new relevance in my articles to drawing attention to their plight; it is even more interdisciplinary as a study.  Further posts in this series will take into account more of the growing amount of literature on the condor from recent technical papers, and I anticipate reviewing and writing about them.

The above image is Plate 4 from Eagles, Hawks and Falcons of the World (Volume 1, pp. 190--191).  It depicts the Andean Condor as by Roger Tory Peterson, with a trio of adult males and a juvenile female lacking the comb.   It was produced around its publication date of 1968, or the prior year, and, for myself, was my introduction to the image of the condor.  I will present it here again.  The original is in Arader Galleries, Philadelphia.

Since Carl Linnaeus first described this vulturine species as his first entry of all birds, there has been only one species of diurnal raptor which has become extinct, the Guadalupe Caracara Polyborus lutosus.  I am anxious for what fate holds in the immediate future for those which are now Critically Endangered or are being gradually reassigned to such status by the I.U.C.N., and perhaps there holds a reversal in the decline of the Andean Condor, a creature which is so often met with in zoos more than in its wild domain.  Its natural history in the fossil record extends back to the Late Pliocene, and the birds which are seen today are the remnant of this vast saga.

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Mathew Louis

Written December 30, 2023

Draft, UAC12----2023:  October 15; November 14; December 2--3, 9--13, 17--18, 23--24